PHOENIX — Kyle Hart wanted at least one more inning. Or at least the opportunity to continue to push his pitch count in the bullpen.
Mother Nature had other ideas.
The skies above American Family Fields of Phoenix opened up in the bottom of the second inning, forcing umpires to cancel the rest of Friday’s exhibition at the Milwaukee Brewers’ complex.
Padres manager Mike Shildt and Brewers manager Pat Murphy convened at home plate with crew chief Lance Barrett and a member of the grounds crew after Hart stranded a one-out double in a 0-0 game. After several moments of discussion, the tarp was rolled back onto the field, the dugouts emptied and the game was canceled.
In competition for the fifth spot in the rotation, the 32-year-old Hart estimates his pitch count settled somewhere between the high 20s and low 30s in an unofficial Cactus League debut. With the game canceled, the line score was scrubbed, but Hart struck out two, didn’t walk a batter and allowed two hits in two innings.
He, of course, was hoping for a bit more work.
“I think I would have been really happy with three innings today,” Hart said. “Three innings would have put me right where I wanted to be. I think everybody’s usually trying to get over that four or five inning hump going into the season. Maybe I’ll just throw a little bit of a heavier bullpen this week or something like that. I’ll make it up somewhere. It’s not going to kill me not to get that third inning. But just happy to get at least some work in today. We could have got banged all together.”
Hart allowed a leadoff single to Vinny Capra before retiring the next three hitters to get out of the first inning. After the rain intensified, he allowed a double to Tyler Black on a play that left fielder Forrest Wall slipped on while trying to track the ball near a soggy warning track. A pop-fly and a strikeout, however, stranded that runner.
The start was Hart’s first in a big-league setting since making three relief appearances for the Red Sox in the Grapefruit League in 2021. He topped out at Triple-A each of the next three seasons and spent all of last year in Korea ahead of signing with the Padres last month.
“Liked what I saw,” Shildt said. “Liked his poise. Everything looked free and easy. He was throwing it where he wanted to throw. Kept some guys off balance. I thought it looked like a good start to his Cactus League career.”
Risk adverse
With rain having already blanketed the area and more in the forecast on Friday afternoon, Yu Darvish’s Cactus League debut was pushed back to Saturday’s home game in Peoria.
“Just unpredictability of the weather,” Shildt said Friday morning. “We don’t want him going out, getting loose, having a delay or getting him getting loose and the game being postponed. So we feel like we’ll keep him on a better routine.”
That pushed Hart into the start and led the Padres to bump right-hander Stephen Kolek from a back-fields game in Peoria to piggyback, but the weather did not cooperate.
In fact, three starters on the infield — first baseman Luis Arraez, second baseman Jake Cronenworth and shortstop Xander Bogaerts — were removed from the game after their at-bats and a half-inning in the field. The tarp that had been on the field before the game was removed after the Padres arrived and the water that had settled on it pooled in the grass behind the infield.
“I just didn’t want them to go back on a ball and do something that didn’t make sense,” Shildt said.
An inning later, the game was canceled altogether.
The long and short of it
Twice last year, Eguy Rosario played big-league games at shortstop, where he has 137 starts over parts of eight seasons in the minors. On Thursday, Rosario played shortstop in a big-league spring training game for the first time, a development that is noteworthy given the fact that veteran Jose Iglesias was just dropped into the battle for a bench spot.
The longest-tenured player in the organization, Rosario’s arm has consistently been touted as the strongest in the system since Fernando Tatis Jr.’s graduation. That would play as well at shortstop as it does at third base, but questions remain if Rosario, with a thick lower half, would have the necessary range to man the middle of the infield in a pinch.
So the Padres are going to find out.
“It’s important,” Shildt said. “If you’re going to be a utility guy, being able to play shortstop is part of it. (Tyler Wade) out there has done a nice job. Clearly Eguy got a chance (Thursday). Anybody that can go out there and grab shortstop as an infield utility guy is going to be important.”
‘Left me hanging’
Since bringing Kai Murphy into the organization as an undrafted free agent in 2022, the Padres have made a habit of including him on their trips to the Brewers’ complex, where his dad has ascended from bench coach to manager. On Friday, the Padres sent the younger Murphy to home plate to exchange lineup cards before the game, but the reigning NL manager of the year was occupied.
Instead, Triple-A Nashville manager Rick Sweet brought the Brewers’ lineup to the plate with a shrug.
“He left me hanging,” Kai Murphy said later.
Notable
- Because nothing gets past a good clubhouse attendant, a brown No. 91 jersey was hanging in Manny Machado’s locker on Friday morning at the Peoria Sports Complex. Machado played the first couple of innings of Thursday’s road game in a No. 91 jersey before switching to No. 13 for the rest of the game. Asked, tongue-in-cheek if Machado’s jersey was on the second bus to Surprise Stadium on Thursday, Shildt said, “I can’t speak to that, but he’s No. 13 in my heart.”
Originally Published: